1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a data center. More particularly, the present invention relates to a transportable, expandable data center.
2. Description of Related Art
Data centers are normally housed in conventional building structures, which generally require a substantial amount of space in an office building or manufacturing facility. Normally, the number of fixed data centers to be installed in a given area is limited according to applicable building rules and security regulations. However, when there is demand for expansion of data storage and/or processing capacity but the fixed data centers do not allow room for such expansion, movable data centers may be used to provide for additional room.
Building a new data center or expanding an existing one requires substantial time and resources. Architectural plans generally must be created to incorporate all of the necessary features and comply with local building codes. Data processing operations must continue without interruption if a new or expanded data center is to replace or is to be integrated into an existing data center. U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2008/0060790 published on Mar. 13, 2008 discloses a movable data center that comprises a portable container for an operable computer system to address the problem associated with expansion of data centers. Moreover, U.S. Pat. Pub. No. 2009/0229194 published on Sep. 17, 2009 discloses a modular containment structure that provides practical and efficient mobility as it can be quickly deployed.
Data centers are designed to provide a controlled environment for efficient operations of computer systems. It is known that computers operate more effectively when they are properly cooled. Conventional data centers are typically cooled by operation of one or more air conditioning units. Air conditioning units for conventional data centers do not vary their cooling fluid output based on respective needs of the distributed data centers. Instead, these air conditioning units generally operate at or near a maximum compressor power even when the heat load is relatively low inside the data center. U.S. Pat. No. 7,493,193 discloses a computer program product for monitoring and real-time heat load control based upon server and environmental parameters to solve the cooling problem.